Spotify announced a new update that will greatly change the situation for free members. The update offers free users a collection of 15 featured playlists, which gives on-demand service, unlimited skips and free choice of songs. With a total of approximately 750 tracks available in the playlists, the free user will experience a much larger freedom.

The free version of Spotify is infamous for its high frequency of ads and very limited choices when it comes to skipping and listening songs, making it a common complaint from its free members.

Though Spotify Premium grants greater freedom with unlimited skips, offline downloads and essentially no restrictions, many still prefer the free version of Spotify over the $9.99 per month service. Spotify has 90 million free users all over the globe at the moment, whereas on the other hand, only 30 million pay users for Spotify Premium.

Of the 15 playlists, some will be based on prefered genres and history, such as in the Daily Mix and Discover Weekly. However, a majority of the playlists will be Spotify’s own playlists, such as the Release Radar, Today’s Top Hits and the hip-hop list Rap Caviar playlists. Spotify is also going to introduce a much more simplistic and clean look to the build of the app.

With Apple Music right at Spotify’s heels when it comes to number of users, Spotify is making moves to boost its growth and maintain its spot as the largest music provider in the world. With a massive amount of 71 million paying subscribers as of March, The Wall Street Journal predicts Apple Music is on track to overtake Spotify as the largest music provider sometime in summer.

-Akif Abidi